The Easiest Way To Cut Your Own Hair – Simple Haircut Tutorial

by Laura Collins17 December 2024Categories: Hair Cutting 0 Comment

Even the healthiest of hair can begin to fray and split on the ends after 12 weeks (3 months) without a haircut. You shouldn’t ever go longer than this without a trim to avoid breakage from traveling up your hair. That being said, I know that getting your hair cut professionally every 8-12 weeks can get expensive. Especially in this economy! So in this post I’m going to teach you how to cut your own hair from home to keep it healthy.

I always say that a bad haircut is better than no haircut. This is because it’s better to have a cut that is slightly uneven than it is to have it uneven from breakage traveling up your hair. My hopes for this post is to help you maintain your hair from home in-between salon visits.

Why you shouldn’t cut layers into your hair

Layers can be difficult to cut into your own hair, and even as a veteran hair stylist I have a hard time doing them on myself. So I don’t recommend anyone to attempt layers themselves, because I’ve seen this go bad quickly.

Also as a personal take, I think that layers are overrated. As a stylist when someone tells me they want layers, I always ask why. Now there are definitely instances where layers are recommended, but most of the time clients ask for them because they think they should have them, and they don’t really know why they’re asking for them.

Layers will reduce the amount of hair that is responsible for length. When this hair is reduced, the ends are going to look thinner and more straggly much quicker. This will increase the possibility of damage to those ends, and make it harder for you to maintain length or grow your hair longer.

When I grew my layers out, my hair tripled in length. Before, I could never get my hair to grow past my shoulders. But as soon as the layers were gone, my hair began to grow long and is now close to my butt!

What tools you need to cut your own hair

It’s super important that you use the proper tools when cutting your hair. You should never use kitchen shears, or any other shears for that matter to cut your hair aside from haircutting scissors.

Similarly to sewing scissors, nothing other than hair should be cut with the shears you use on your hair. They must be extremely sharp and made with specific Japanese steel to avoid damaging the ends of the hair.

If improper scissors are used, this can actually make split ends worse. They can rip, tear, and split the hair, causing more damage than good.

You can find very cheap haircutting scissors on Amazon (linked below) or at Sally’s, so there’s really no excuse here!

I also recommend using a carbon comb to reduce static when cutting your hair. This makes the hair much easier to control during dry cutting.

***Since I’m sharing the products that I love to use with you guys, this page includes affiliate links to these products. If you take action and purchase a product through clicking one of my links, I’ll make some commission money from it at no extra cost to you. This enables me to be able to continue giving you awesome hair tips, so thanks! ***

How to cut your own hair in 5 steps

In this tutorial, I cut my hair dry. I recommend this when trimming split ends because you can easier see what hair needs to be cut, as well as how the hair is going to lay. It helps you to avoid taking an unnecessary amount of hair off, and it’s also more forgiving.

It’s also extremely important that you hold the hair down at a 0 degree angle before grabbing the hair to cut. If you hold the hair up, you’ll create layers in the hair, and things will get bad quickly!

I highly recommend watching my Youtube video at the beginning of this post for a visual reference of how to cut your own hair to avoid making any mistakes.

The steps for cutting your own hair are:

Determine how much hair to cut off
Cut your face frame (optional)
Check the hair parted in different directions
Blend the back of your hair into the front
Check that the haircut matches on each side

Step 1: Determine how much hair to cut off

First you’ll section the hair from front to back behind your ears. If it’s easier, use a scrunchy to hold the hair in the back out of your way.

Next, it’s important to asses your ends and take off enough hair to make a difference. If you don’t cut off enough hair, the haircut is honestly pointless. You need to make sure that you’re removing the straggly pieces to be sure that the splits won’t continue to travel up your hair.

See the picture below. This is what my hair looked like, and I decided to take off roughly 2 inches of hair.

BEFORE-PICTURE-OF-BLONDE-HAIR-WITH-STRAGGLY-ENDS

Once you decide on an amount, you’ll make the first cuts. Holding the hair straight down, cut off your desired length on both sides.

Step 2: How to cut a face frame

This second step is optional. Personally, I like to create an angle in my hair so that it’s not all totally one length with no movement. But this is not at all necessary if you’d rather have your hair longer in the front and one length all around.

To create an angle, you’ll comb the hair diagonally forward using your carbon comb. Follow the same angle with your fingers as you grab the hair, and make your cuts following that same angle.

You’ll now follow this diagonal angle for the remainder of your haircut to create the U shape in the images above.

TUTORIAL-SCREENSHOT-SHOWING-HAIR-BEING-PULLED-AT-AN-ANGLE-FORWARD

Step 3: Check the hair parted in different directions

In this step, we’ll be checking the cuts with your hair parted in different directions. This is so you can change your part without your haircut forcing you to wear the same part all the time.

If you skip this step, you’ll end up with a long out of place piece of hair if you happen to have one hair on the opposite side for a day.

I also recommend changing your part regularly to avoid thinning and breakage around your part-line, so this is important.

To do this, you’ll switch your part to the middle as well as both sides to check for steps or uneven pieces. Hold the hair at the same angle, and check for any hairs out of place that aren’t blending.

Keep in mind that if you part your hair to the side, one side will be longer than the other.

When the hair is parted in the middle it will be even, and this is how I recommend cutting your hair. It won’t be drastically different when parted in other directions (as long as you check it and blend), and it’s better to be able to switch the part without the cut being off.

Step 4: How to blend the back of your hair into the front

Next, we’ll begin blending the back of the hair into the front. You’ll start off by taking a 1 inch section of hair from the back on each side and pulling it forward.

You’ll then comb the hair at the same angle, and cut the hair following your line. At this point, it should be getting much easier to see and follow your line because you’ve got more hair that has been cut.

Depending on how much hair you have, you’ll have roughly 2-3 sections on each side to pull forward.

Do this until you have no hair left in the back to cut.

Step 5: How to check that your haircut is even on both sides

TUTORIAL-SCREENSHOT-SHOWING-HAIR-BEING-PULLED-FORWARD-ON-BOTH-SIDES-TO-CHECK-FOR-EVENNESS

The last step is to check that the hair is matching on both sides.

You’ll begin this by pulling hair from the back left side over to the right side and holding it at your angle to check for any unblended lines. Then, repeat this on the other side.

Finally, you’ll divide your hair down the middle in the back, pull all the hair forward, and check both sides in the front. If one side is longer than the other, you can make adjustments here.

Conclusion

To conclude, it’s better to cut your own hair yourself from home than to go without a haircut. This is to keep your hair healthy and avoid split ends and breakage from traveling up your hair strand.

Layers are not recommended, as they are difficult to cut yourself and they can also hinder your ability to grow your hair out. Your hair will be healthier without them.

Purchase the proper hair cutting scissors rather than using kitchen scissors to avoid damaging your hair. You can also use a carbon comb to reduce static and help maintain control of the hair during the haircut.

Cutting your hair dry is recommended to avoid taking too much hair off. It will be easier to determine how much hair to cut, allow you to see exactly how the hair will lay, and is much more forgiving than wet hair cutting.